


dead stars and doomed planets

by floraltohru



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxiety, Childhood Trauma, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Panic Attacks, Sort of? - Freeform, Stargazing, idk they're on the roof ad there are stars involved, or at least alternate universe flavored
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25159996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floraltohru/pseuds/floraltohru
Summary: Yuki tries to be supportive, but panic-spirals instead.
Relationships: Sohma Kyou/Sohma Yuki
Comments: 14
Kudos: 115





	dead stars and doomed planets

“Do you have to hang out up here?” Yuki asks, heaving himself up onto the roof. “It’s incredibly inconvenient.” 

He hates walking across the shingles; they’re rough and uneven and it’s impossible to look calm and capable when he’s trying to keep his balance and not fall to his death. 

“No one asked you to come up.” Kyo doesn’t even bother to pull his eyes away from the fixed point he’s staring at - some star off in the distance, blinking faintly in the deep velvet night. 

“That’s not true. Strictly speaking.” Yuki settles himself down next to Kyo, pulling his knees into his chest. Kyo doesn’t move, doesn’t sit up, doesn’t even flinch. 

_ That’ll serve him well, _ Yuki thinks darkly. 

“Why are you up here anyway?” Kyo asks at last. It’s hardly an accusation; the usual edge has bled out of his voice. Yuki almost has to strain to hear him over the distant sound of traffic. He looks tired.

It hurts to look at him, so Yuki doesn’t. Not for too long, at least. 

“She's worried about you.” 

Kyo knits his brows together. “Did she say something?” 

“She asked if I’d come get you for dinner. She’s afraid you don’t want to talk to her.” 

With a low groan, Kyo scrubs a hand through his hair. “Shit.” 

“Yeah, shit is right.” Yuki kicks Kyo lightly in the leg. “She thinks she did something wrong.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Kyo says. 

“Please do.” 

Yuki feels liminal up here, transient, like he doesn’t actually harbor a physical form, like he’s just a collection of dust and could blow away on the night breeze. He wishes it was the truth sometimes, wishes he could drift off and leave the rat spirit behind to be someone else’s problem. Maybe it’s just Kyo’s penchant for seeking higher ground, but in any case Yuki can understand why he’s carved out a space for himself up here. 

His eyes ever upward, Yuki remembers that when he was in middle school, he learned that some of the stars in the night sky are already dead, snuffed out but still visible due to some kind of cosmic delayed reaction. He wasn’t sure why, exactly - he hadn’t been paying  _ that _ much attention to the physics of it all - only that it happened. 

If the universe didn’t stop on a dime for the death of a star, Yuki is sure the world would keep spinning if he just blinked out of existence too. It’s almost a comfort to feel so inconsequential. Almost. 

Dust. Breeze. Et cetera. 

Dinner will be ready soon and Tohru will come looking for them if they take too long, but neither one makes a move. 

“Well? Is there something else?” Kyo asks, his voice finally cracking through the tenuous peace between them. 

“Are you worried about it?” Yuki asks before he can stop himself, the thought of his own insignificance in the universe making him feel bold. 

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Kyo sighs. “Worrying about it won’t change anything.” 

“Right,” Yuki says. For a fleeting moment, he’s almost jealous.

His own fears about the future have been all-encompassing, all-consuming. He feels like he’s hurtling toward whatever is the opposite of the light at the end of the tunnel, a darkness unkind and unceasing, a chill that closes in. 

“Hey.” Kyo keeps his eyes ahead, pinned to the sky. “What’s it like?” 

“I’ve never seen the cat’s room.”

“Yeah, I know, but…” Kyo waves a hand, his thoughts too imprecise to shape into words. “You know what I mean?” 

Perhaps he does. Perhaps the venue is inconsequential; the cat’s cage, the pitch dark room. Eventually their foundations are stripped down. Walls and floors and paint and tatami fall away, trifling details drowned out by Akito and a crushing, crippling loneliness. 

“Akito will tell you things about yourself,” Yuki says, wrapping his arms more tightly around his knees. 

“Okay?” 

“I guess…” Yuki lets out an exasperated huff. Any time he thinks too long about the pitch black room, his tongue stops taking instruction from his brain and he stumbles over his words. He takes a deep breath and hopes he doesn’t sound ridiculous as he works through them, slowly and carefully forming each one. “Akito will tell you things that aren’t true.” 

“Yeah,” Kyo says. “I know.” 

“No,” Yuki says shortly. Funny, he doesn’t have any trouble with that one. “You don’t.”

“What do you mean?” 

“You’ll think they’re true.” Yuki had thought they were true, all of the pitch black things whispered in the pitch black room, dying _him_ pitch black like India ink. Facts, as unflinchingly undeniable as if they were printed in a textbook. Akito spoke a gospel all his own; he articulated the _literal_ word of god, cold and cruel and impossible to discredit. 

Sometimes Yuki still feels like there’s a sacred text branded across his heart and a chant like a prayer he can hear when he lets his guard down, as clear as if Akito was next to him, hot breath ghosting over his ear. 

_ Nothing, wretched, delusional, waste of space, unlovable.  _

Yuki wills himself to turn, to stare at Kyo with all the intensity he can muster up. “He’ll say horrible things and you’ll think they’re true because that’s the curse. But you have to know they’re not true.” 

“Okay.” Kyo sits up on his elbows, the channel between his brows drawn deeper in concern. “I get it.” 

“You have to remember,” Yuki says, and now the words are spilling out of him faster than he can keep up, like they were always right there inside of him, locked away behind a dam that’s been crumbling slowly, slowly, and now all at once. He doesn’t notice that Kyo has turned to study him - as much as he can see him in the moonlight, at least. “You have to remember that the things he says aren’t true. No one else will be there to tell you so  _ you _ have to remember.” 

“Yuki,” Kyo says, his voice firm but not unkind. He flinches when Yuki’s arm shoots out, but Yuki just grips at the sleeve of Kyo’s sweatshirt. 

“Akito will tell you you’re worthless,” Yuki says. 

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” If he wasn’t spinning out, Yuki might notice the sharp concern in Kyo’s eyes. If he went so far as to actually pay attention, he would probably even see that Kyo seemed to be more concerned about Yuki than himself. 

“And he’ll tell you he’s the only one who cares about you.”

No doubt Kyo’s arm is starting to ache where Yuki’s nails dig in. The skin beneath Yuki’s hands will start to turn red soon, then purple if he keeps it up, a light lavender splayed out over Kyo’s flesh in the shape of Yuki’s anxieties. “Yuki,” he says again. “I understand.” 

“You don’t.” 

“I know what Akito does.” 

Yuki jerks away, Kyo’s shirt wrinkled where his hand was. “Sorry.” 

“Are  _ you _ alright?” 

“Fine.” Yuki scrunches his eyes shut when darkness starts to creep in at the edge of his vision. 

“You need to breathe.” Kyo inches closer. “Hey. You hear me? Breathe.” 

When Yuki finally gasps like a fish out of water, Kyo swats at his shoulder. “Not like that, stupid. Deep breaths. Like Shishou taught us.” 

“Don’t call me stupid,” Yuki wheezes.

“Don’t be stupid, then.” 

Yuki rolls his eyes, but he manages to inhale through his nose, exhale through his mouth, rinse, repeat. He still feels his body tingling like it’s made of static, but his breathing steadies and his heartbeat levels out after a while. 

“What?” Yuki snaps when he catches Kyo smirking to himself. 

“Did you have to come up here just to have a panic attack? Couldn’t do it once you were safely on the ground?” 

“Fuck off,” Yuki says, and he’s a little surprised and little bit proud of how steady his voice sounds even though his hands are still shaking. But it does make sense, he thinks idly. It’s a comfortable exchange, practiced, routine. He could snark Kyo in his sleep. 

Even if it’s not quite as cruel as it used to be. 

“I’ll be okay.” Kyo turns away to tilt his head back toward the star-scattered sky, answering a question that was asked, just not out loud. 

“He lies." Yuki's typical post-panic exhaustion is starting to take root behind his eyes, slowing him down like he's trying to move through chest-high mud. 

"I know."

"None of those things are true. They can’t be true, because people do care about you.” 

"Yeah?"

“Yeah,” Yuki says. “I mean, she sees something in you that’s not  _ entirely _ atrocious.” 

“Gee, thanks.” 

Perhaps Yuki will kick himself later for the things he doesn’t say. Kyo will be fine, he thinks bitterly, because he’s always been the braver one of the two of them. 

Instead, with a groan, he drops his forehead to rest on Kyo’s shoulder. Kyo tenses, but doesn’t push him off or shove him away. “Yuki?” 

“I’m tired,” Yuki says. 

Kyo’s shoulder jerks slightly when he snickers. “Okay.” 

And to his credit, Yuki does nearly fall asleep there, his brain wandering off to some forgotten corner of the roof to think some more about the cessation of a cosmic existence. 

Tohru’s voice drifts up through the night air, carried from her bedroom window along with the faint smell of garlic from her cooking. Yuki had never thought about the musicality of his own two syllables before he met her, but it’s undeniable when he hears her call his name. 

“We’ll be down in a minute, Tohru,” Kyo calls, still steady under the weight of Yuki’s head on his shoulder. 

“Alright!” she chirps, and Yuki can hear her humming faintly to herself before she shuts the bedroom window and returns to the kitchen. 

Yuki finally sits up, rolling the stiffness out of his neck. 

Kyo stands up and stretches his arms over his head. When he turns to find Yuki still hugging his knees, he reaches out to haul him up. His hands are surprisingly hot - or Yuki’s are just unnaturally cold. “Are you feeling alright now?” 

Wobbling a bit when he stands, Yuki chalks it up to the slant in the roof and nothing more. “Yeah. Right as rain.” Yuki cringes at the adage as he’s said it out loud. 

If he notices, Kyo doesn’t comment further. He simply hauls himself down the ladder, across the engawa, over the threshold, through the hallway, and into the kitchen.

He’s gone before Yuki can register the absence, the wrongness, the chill in the air where Kyo’s warmth was just moments before, a black hole in the shape of a star. 

Yuki shakes it off and follows Kyo into the house, where he watches him eat dinner as if his days aren’t numbered. 

He falls asleep thinking about galaxies and missing the thrill of a fight. 

**Author's Note:**

> i see your song lyric fic titles and raise you astronomy today article fic titles. shrug emoji. 
> 
> i'm on twitter and tumblr @floraltohru.


End file.
